


the ashes burning low

by fanfoolishness (LoonyLupin), LoonyLupin



Series: Chapter and Verse (Varric Tethras x Min Hawke) [7]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-15
Updated: 2019-03-15
Packaged: 2019-11-18 09:01:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18117584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/fanfoolishness, https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoonyLupin/pseuds/LoonyLupin
Summary: Loving Bianca was never an easy thing to do, no matter what Varric liked to tell himself.





	the ashes burning low

Varric hasn’t always kept his mouth shut when he should have.  One of his charming quirks of character.  He knows it about himself just as surely as he knows anything else.

This, though, with Bianca – Varric knows he can’t let a thing slip.  Hears her voice in his head, any time he veers close.   _Not yet.  I have to work on my family first.  You know how family can be._

So he doesn’t breathe a word of the real situation to a single soul, but he writes it down, code names and dates changed and disguised destinations, and when he misses her, he reads his notes.

Sometimes it’s enough.  Ink and paper build worlds for him all the time, and sometimes they build a world where he and Bianca settle down in Kirkwall and she tinkers in her quarters and he writes in his, and at night, they meet up for good ale and a fire burning down to the ashes.  Sometimes he dreams of what it’d be like, waking up to her laugh in the morning.

 

***

 

Sometimes it isn’t enough.

Sometimes he rides for weeks to meet her in the ass end of the Marches, in grubby inns that make the Hanged Man look classy.  They use their false names and keep their hoods up, and the sex is furtive and hungry and never quite as good as he remembers.  

He strokes her hair afterwards while she sleeps against him.  He knows it would be better if they could practice more than twice a year, if they could just get the rhythm right.  But there’s guilds and machinations out there with different ideas, and that’s fine, he’ll play stealth if he needs to, even if it hurts.  For her.

It’s okay, except those times he misses her and she’s right beside him.

 

***

 

Varric looks at the necklace, shimmering gold in the firelight, the square jeweled pendant ending in the soft valley between her breasts.  The crest of House Vasca gleams against her skin.

_I was going to tell you.  I have to marry him, Varric._

He spends the visit sitting on the far side of the lumpy inn bed, staring out the cracked window at the rain.  She holds his hand, her struggle clear in her face.  She cries on his shoulder.  He just listens.  

_It won’t change anything, I promise.  I love **you.**   This is just politics._

He knows he should fight with her on this, should fight  _for_  her.  This isn’t what he wants.  

He wants more, damn it.

But he doesn’t breathe a word to her.  Stuffs it all back down, pride, heartache, anger, whatever name you want to put on it.  This is still better than nothing, right?  Has to be.  

So he smiles.   _I know.  It’s fine._

The fire burns down to the ashes, and he holds her in the fading light, gold between their skin.


End file.
